Recent advances in consumer appliances have provided additional features to appliances that enhance efficiency, ease of use, practicality, or other factors that increase user satisfaction.
However, an appliance that includes a large number of additional features or options can be challenging to operate for a novice user or may require an undesirably large amount of instruction or configuration by the user in order to achieve a certain appliance operation. For example, certain appliances can require the user to select operational preferences by interfacing with a touch screen or a number of selectable buttons or require the users to sign in with a personal identification number or username and password.
As an example, a refrigerator can include a water dispensing system that offers operation according a number of various parameters. For example, the user can be permitted to select a water temperature, a water flavoring, a water carbonation level, an ice style, or other configurable parameters. However, requiring the user to select a preference for each of these features at each instance in which the user interacts with the refrigerator can be cumbersome, challenging, and time-consuming.
One attempted solution to the difficulty of operating feature-rich appliances is for the appliance to be able to respond to voice commands. However, for households in which several different users reside and interact with an appliance, it can be difficult for the appliance to intelligently distinguish among commands from various users and provide an enhanced, personalized experience to each specific user.
Therefore, an appliance that provides user-specific preferences in response to voice commands is desirable.